Pandora's Star

Britain's bestselling SF writer returns to outer space.In AD 2329, humanity has colonised over four hundred planets, all of them interlinked by wormholes. With Earth at its centre, the Intersolar Commonwealth now occupies a sphere of space approximately four hundred light years across.When an astronomer on the outermost world of Gralmond, observes a star 2000 light years distant - and then a neighbouring one - vanish, it is time for the Commonwealth to discover what happened to them.

Excellent!

Fast paced, mature, well thought out and awesome. Not suitable for children but great for anyone else.
Now for the sequel...

Pandora's Star

The year is 2380. The Intersolar Commonwealth, a sphere of stars some 400 light-years in diameter, contains more than 600 worlds, interconnected by a web of transport "tunnels" known as wormholes. At the farthest edge of the Commonwealth, astronomer Dudley Bose observes the impossible: Over 1,000 light-years away, a star...vanishes. It does not go supernova. It does not collapse into a black hole. It simply disappears.

Great Epic Scifi

"Pandora's Star" and its sequel are two of my favorite audiobooks, and I've listened to atleast 50 audiobooks over the last few years.

I..Show More » do have one warning, the story is fairly slow going at first and there are many characters/subplots. I almost gave up after a few hours, but I'm glad I kept going. I caught myself wishing at points that he'd just stop introducing new characters, but hang in there, the story is well worth the initial effort. Some of the characters who I thought were boring and extranious at first ended up being the most interesting and exciting in the end.

Peter F Hamilton has created a unique new scifi universe in these two books. Like all great Scif universes this is futuristic and imaginative without feeling fake or "made up". The humans still act like humans(with human strengths and flaws) and the aliens are truely alien(not just humans that look different). Hearing about life in the Commonwealth is almost as interesting as the story itself.

I would definitely consider this epic scifi, but there are elements that appeal to the Cyber-punk fan in me. This is certainly edgy with plenty of sex and violence. There aren't that many sex scenes but sexuality is certaintly a driving force in some characters and is often refered to in the context of the story. There are also several homosexual characters, but he hardly makes it into an issue, its just one part of a few characters lives. Its refreshing to have characters who also happen to be gay rather than "gay characters".

Some reviews have been critical of the narrator, don't believe them. I think he did a great job, sure some of his american accents aren't flawless, but give him a break hes obviously british. Each character is easy to distinguish and he does a good job with the individual voices without going overboard(like some narrators when they voice a different gender)

Judas Unchained

The high-action concluding novel of the Commonwealth Saga from one of the world's bestselling Science Fiction writersAfter hundreds of years secretly manipulating the human race, the Starflyer alien has succeeded in engineering a war which should result in the destruction of the Intersolar Commonwealth.

Judas Unchained

Robust, peaceful, and confident, the Commonwealth dispatched a ship to investigate the mystery of a disappearing star, only to inadvertently unleash a predatory alien species that turned on its liberators, striking hard, fast, and utterly without mercy.The Prime are the Commonwealth's worst nightmare. Coexistence is impossible with the technologically advanced aliens, who are genetically hardwired to exterminate all other forms of life.

Exceptionally great book

This is essentially the second half of a single book - the first half is Pandora's Star. Judas Unchained begins where Pandora's Star left off, in the..Show More » middle of a very exciting battle for survival. The writing is very descriptive, the action constant and intense. The author has a wonderful and consistent vision of other alien cultures, including philosophy, anatomy, and so on. There are enough threads of today's society that the descriptions of human culture in the future are quite believable and consistent. The narration adds to the quality, and is superb. You'll want to read Pandora's Star first, and download this one before you finish, so that you can go on listening to the end. The ending, of course, is quite satisfying.